The World War II memoir of a Battle of Britain fighter ace who escaped Czechoslovakia to serve in France and with the RAF in England.Stunned into action by the rapid collapse of his country in 1938, Czech pilot Stanislav Fejfar escaped and traveled through Poland to serve initially with the French Foreign Legion, then as a sous-lieutenant with the French air force in early 1940. After the demise of that country, he fled to England in July 1940 to join the RAF. Post...

This lively, funny memoir by a World War I pilot is "recommended for its rare view of the RAF in its nascent years and beyond" ( Over the Front).Annotated by aviation historian Norman Franks, this is the autobiography of an early RAF pilot that conveys the sense of giddy adventure that existed among these elite flyers. The story begins in France in late 1918, when D'Arcy Greig was flying FE2b night bombers, then through the early 1920s as he served in Iraq,...

This is the captivating story of the four Raw brothers, all of whom served with the Royal Air Force. The eldest three flew during WW2 and all three died.The youngest, not old enough to see wartime flying, flew night-fighters in the postwar years, ending up flying Spitfires with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. The eldest brother, John, was killed in a flying accident just as he was starting a job as a flying instructor, in 1941. Peter was a fighter pilot, flying Typhoons with...

Following the extraordinary career of a Second World War bomber pilot, Flying Among Heroes brings together adventure and human daring with the harsh realities of being a member of the wartime Royal Air Force. Tom Cooke, like hundreds of other young men in 1939, joined up to the RAF just a few days before war began aged 18, being selected for pilot training. Just five years later, he had flown fifty-one operations, taken part in the Berlin bombings and three 1,000-...

A definitive new edition of a classic, World War II memoir, complete with more than 100 photographs, and notes from leading historians.Guy Gibson was the leader of the famous Dambusters raid, and Enemy Coast Ahead is a vivid, honest account, widely regarded as one of the best books on the Second World War. It also provides an insider's perspective, setting down in clear detail the challenges that the RAF faced in the war against Germany's Luftwaffe.

The book contains twenty-three stirring accounts of what life flying as air-crew in World War Two was really like. The writers are a mixed bunch of pilots, navigators and gunners who flew medium and heavy bombers or Mosquitoes. It conveys the terror of being coned by German searchlights over the target, attacks by Luftwaffe night-fighters, catastrophic damage to aircraft and the ensuing struggle to keep the machine airborne on the return trip to base. It tells of the comradeship between th...

The posthumous memoirs of a World War II Pathfinder pilot and Distinguished Flying Cross recipient who flew target-marking missions in enemy territory.Denys A. Braithwaite was born of a well-to-do Yorkshire family and joined the Auxiliary Air Force on his eighteenth birthday in 1939. On the occasion of Chamberlain's speech to the British nation on September 3, the situation changed dramatically and from being a "super weekend club," his squadron was assigned coasta...

Spitfire Pilot is the exhilarating and moving memoir of D. M. Crook, an airman in the legendary 609 Squadron - one of the most successful RAF units in the Battle of Britain. Beginning with his fond recollections of his halcyon days in training - acrobatics, night flying and languorous days spent playing sport and nights off visiting Piccadilly Circus - Crook goes on to recount in thrilling detail the dogfights, remarkable victories and tragic losses which formed the daily routine of Britai...

Clive 'Killer' Caldwell was a natural and brilliant pilot, a superb shot, and a born leader. He saw action against the Germans, Italians and Japanese, and remains Australia's greatest ever fighter pilot.Born and brought up in Sydney, it was obvious from an early age that nothing would stand in Caldwell's way. He bluffed his way into the RAAF, then made sure that he was posted to exactly where he thought he should be.His ability was unquestioned by all those...

A celebration of the machine and the men who took to the skies in defence of Britain. It is also the dramatic illustration of a little understood truth: the Spitfire did more than win the Battle of Britain - it won the war. It was not Stalingrad which turned the corner of the war against Hitler, it was the Spitfire in the summer of 1940 when RAF Fighter Command destroyed the myth of Nazi invincibility.Praise for his previous books:London: The Autobiogra...

The World War II exploits of the legendary RAF air gunner, "a true hero who repeatedly cheated death," from the author of Flying into Hell ( The Times).Born into grinding poverty in Scotland, Wallace McIntosh had not heard of Christmas until he was seven, and never celebrated his birthday until his late teens, but he could steal, kill and skin a sheep before he was twelve and snare anything that could be cooked in a pot. Leaving school at thirteen...

This is a selection of ten remarkable true accounts of unusual incidents and happenings to Bomber Command aircrew during World War Two. It covers operations of varying natures, such as one of the first leaflet dropping raids during the 'Phoney War' when the elderly Whitley bomber proved to be a nightmare on long flights and when the crews suffered more from lack of oxygen and heating than from enemy action. The fascinating story of a famous MP who used his influence to become a tail gunner...